Now that… that’s beautiful. If this is what metal magic can wreak, it might be worth learning the elemental side as opposed to just whatever falls under its domain. It’s bright, it’s shiny, the way the spires twist like an ancient tree… that couldn’t have been wrought by a smith.
I wonder what the smiths will do when metal sorcerers become commonplace. Then again, right now fire sorcerers aren’t all that common, and evidently the sphere of metal requires a grounding in the sphere of fire.
But I was… it really is a work of art. Look at those bridges between spires. Are there guard rails? I can’t tell from here. There’ve got to be. Then again, there doesn’t appear to be glass in those windows. It’s cold. You’d think they’d want to be able to heat their space. But those wide, diamond-shaped open spaces aren’t catching the light like they have glass in them.
Warmth issues aside, it’s very pretty. It looks like it was woven from grass or something, but it’s got to be metal with the height of the towers. I wonder who my classmates will be. Mom said it had existed for a few years, and we’ve been in a caravan with other wagons for the last half a day, so clearly there are more than a few. I’m glad it was in the budget for me to take a private carriage, I don’t relish the thought of traveling packed in with a bunch of other fire sorcerers. Except, perhaps, that one of them could conjure flame and make it warmer in here!
Patience continued alternating between aesthetic appreciation of Bladesedge and pondering the imponderables of her life to be as her carriage approached the college. Eventually, sick of the cold, she closed the window and lit a sulfur match. She sighed, It takes so much effort to sustain actual elemental flame. I wonder if that’s because I’m not used to it, or whether I’ve just developed dexterity rather than strength with my sorcery? But given a start, I can keep my hands warm at least. She left the blinds up, so she wouldn’t sit there like an earthbrain when they had arrived. But will it do to appear overeager? If I jump out the moment the carriage is actually stopped in the courtyard… there’s nothing for it. I’m going to have to rely upon my nonexistent social skills here.
In the courtyard, there were men and women, perhaps a few years Patience’s senior, standing about in gray sleeveless shirts and fire-red leggings. Around their waists were tied some kind of layer. They were directing traffic, herding the carriages in the right direction and getting a growing collection of students gathered outside the central tower. They have got to be using fire sorcery to be fine attired like that. Heartened by the prospect, and keeping her flame cupped in her palms, Patience dismounted from the carriage when instructed to. The young woman directing her shot a glance at the flame in her hands and made some kind of face Patience couldn’t read while maintaining her fire.
“Initiates! Gather here!” The man speaking was dressed no different than the others, aside from having a metal horn to speak into which effectively amplified his voice. “Now then! I see that many of you were not prepared for the climate! Well, the bad news is it’s Leo, by the time the Rest season arrives you’ll know what cold is! The good news is, as fire sorcerers, you are uniquely equipped to contend with a fire-walled sphere’s climate! Gather ‘round!” Straightforward. Rough humor. “Now, I’m going to show you how to heat yourself with sorcery! The trick will be not setting yourself on fire! Let me tell you, doing this wrong will give you some of the worst heartburn you’ve ever had!” I don’t think I’ve ever actually conjured fire. I wonder if that will make this harder or easier. “Find the focus of the sphere for yourself! Most of you, this will be elemental flame, and that’s honestly a disadvantage. If it’s the humor or the domain, you’re less likely to set yourself on fire, but this will be trickier. If you’re a pious sort, you already know that fire is the offering of the element, so you’re in the former boat.
“Now then. Having found that, look for the same focus in yourself!” So… emotion within myself. Anger, ideally. Except I’m somewhere between excited and terrified. Between the two, I think terror will fuel this better, but I’m not the best with the element. “This is the part where you elementalists will combust, so go slowly! Humorists and domain casters, this is the part where your attempts will fail! Conjure forth flame.” How do I…? Maybe I’ll just take the heat from my little flame. I know what sorcerous burnout… oh, what if I just emulated what Mother did with her little trap, but in my core? The result was painful, but she felt heat in her core bleeding into her extremities. I guess it’s—oof—that simple. Okay, not that simple. Kinda burny. There’s got to be a way to refine this, but I’m guessing that will come with practice. Holy Savior—!
Next to Patience a geyser of flame erupted from one of her fellow novices, drawn into a ball by one of the sleeveless young adults. She held the flame up high and then snuffed it out. “Dodger, the cone please,” Patience barely heard. The man instructing them handed it over and she went on to announce, “This is why you have upperclassmen watching you while you do this! Trust me, ‘a bit singed’ is a huge improvement on where you’d be without someone to siphon off the flame!”
The instruction went on for a while, and Patience quietly let her ball of fire burn out while her classmates figured out how to will themselves warm. She reached out with her sorcerous senses to assess the emotional state of both her peers and the upperclassmen, using only the most delicate, passive evocations. Or so she thought. One of the upperclassmen, who was radiating boredom, caught her eye and grinned. She felt the distinct touch of blunt sorcery, reading her own uncertainty and curiosity. Irritated, she sent out a pulse of disdain, letting it echo through the underclassmen. This had the unfortunate side-effect of several cavalier attempts at sorcery, and the upperclassmen pulled flames off several novices for their own safety.
The young man pulled the student with the cone aside, and she proceeded to make an announcement. “Alright! So we have our elementalists! You’ll notice that Bladesedge is a metal assemblage in the middle of a very damp swamp! Not much is going to catch fire easily here! But there are also our domain sorcerers, and this next instruction is for their sake! You’re going to need to develop some actual social skills while you’re here, because the best counter to fire sorcery is more fire sorcery! Elementalists, you’ll want to cadge tricks from your domain compatriots, even as you show them esoteric fire tricks like this!” With an echoing blast, she set off a vivid green fireburst about thirty feet up. “But as I was saying! You’ll all need a grasp of the domain of the fire sphere, which is emotion! If you don’t build up a ward in your own heart, you’re going to find out that you’re best friends with people you’ve never met, and that you have an overwhelming desire to do their homework for them!” Well sarx. At least I won’t be the only one with a social disadvantage.
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“The simplest way to make a ward is to take the emotion you’re feeling and fuel it like you would an already-burning flame. But unless you want to be upkeeping that, you’re going to need actual architecture to hold the emotion as a wall against sorcerously-inspired affection. That part’s going to be harder. First off, make sure the emotion is one you want to encourage in yourself! I advocate for interest or industriousness! Find your center, which is ironically not in the center of your chest but to the left. One God made that mystery ineffable. Focus on the emotion… we’re going to watch.” This I already know. I may not have had the words for it, but I’ve been laying mental architecture for more than a decade. Setting up a careful perimeter which wouldn’t influence her own emotional state, Patience pondered the teachings they were receiving. If it’s not even day one and they’re teaching elemental theory… I have learned a lot already. I wonder what I’d know if I’d been properly trained in sorcery rather than figuring out all of it myself. I mean, I’m not learning that much, but I’m learning the words for all of it.
I wonder what the metal sphere can do, aside from make beautiful spires? There’s an entire college devoted to it, and there are upperclassmen still present, so clearly there’s a lot to it. For a new science, it’s impressively well-developed. I wonder if they got a draconic patron to supply some of the theory?
After the upperclassmen were satisfied that their evident charges had taught themselves enough to survive both the environment and their classmates, they directed the students towards one of the longer buildings, its facade like that of a tower but its body extending straight back. Oh, it’s a chapel. That makes sense. We may not be about to take vows, but we need a solid grounding in Orthodox Wholism to have the faith needed for working sorcery.
The windows were kite-shaped and filled with colored glass, depicting both dragons and the White Queen in various holy endeavors. At the head of the chapel was a large window taking up the entire wall, depicting the Savior crucified by leaders of Icehold. They’re proud of that, these days. As though there’s a single thing in common with modern Icehold and their pre-Loss government. But they claim religious superiority for having played a pivotal role in the One God’s plan. But I shouldn’t judge. Everyone wants to feel pious, except for the very ill indeed.
Evidently their education was to begin the very day of their arrival. At the pulpit stood a dark-skinned woman with sharp cheekbones and long, straight gray hair. Not native to this sphere. “Good afternoon, novices of Bladesedge. Now that you have been given the basics of working your element… prepare to forget all you know in the pursuit of higher knowledge. Fire will remain a part of you, adding or replacing an elemental affinity is, if you’ll pardon the metaphor, devilishly tricky.” So they don’t take themselves too seriously here. Maybe this won’t totally sarx. “But you will have to learn to apply those skills in a way I can only say is analogous to learning a different musical instrument. The potential of sorcery is a largely-untapped thing, and we at Bladesedge strive to tap that reservoir of potential. We are, so far as we know, the only multi-year metal sphere college. Certainly, in Fief, we stand alone. But name the earth sorcerer who can order a mountain into the ocean! The Savior said with faith the size of a mustard seed, such an act was possible, and yet our impoverished faiths take days, weeks, even months to effect such changes as erecting this college!”
That’s… an interesting take. I hadn’t considered that. But that would make children, with their simple and pure faiths, the most powerful sorcerers. Have I already passed my prime as a fire sorcerer? Is that what I’m to—I should pay attention.
“Hold tight to your first lessons in the metal sphere, novices! For while it is too late for your first act of fire sorcery, the metal sphere still holds hope. Your first working will be your greatest, the capstone of your faith. As the Savior said, blessed are you who saw and believed, but how much more blessed are those who believe without seeing? Walking out in faith is purest before it has been proven, and for that reason the first working of a sphere is the essence of your workings!” Sarx. That really does seem to suggest I’ve peaked as a sorceress. All I can do is chase that height of faith. I never thought that my faith was inadequate, but then I have to admit I’ve come up against my own limitations more than once, and failed to consider why.
“I am Dean Blade, and I am the highest authority both temporal and spiritual on this campus. I will be instructing you in certain matters personally.” I don’t know what to make of that. A teacher unafraid to get their hands dirty and actually teach would probably be an ideal leader, except I can’t enchant her, except I can’t even enchant the upperclassmen here, so I guess it’s a wash? “You will all attend services Sunday, before retiring to individual study of Scripture. While we are well aware that students learn at different paces, you will be tested periodically on your understanding of what you are reading. Not on the Sabbath, of course, but you will be expected to show evidence of contemplation and study on your Sundays. For leisure, you will have a half-day Saturdays, the morning spent on chores—” Chores! With the tuition you charge you’re having us act as students at an ordinary college, workers needing to be kept busy! Several gouts of flame went up from the pews and coalesced into a magmic ball in Dean Blade’s hand. “Yes, chores. I realize you all are sorcerers, and therefore destined for greater things, but service develops the spirit, and being able to attend to your own basic needs without help will serve those of you who join the White Queen’s Enforcers or the Army. Your meals will be provided the other six days of the week, it is hardly as though we are cheating you.” She closed her hand on the painfully-bright sphere of stolen flame, and it extinguished with barely a whoof of air. By the Saints, she’s a powerful fire sorcerer and a sharp woman!
Ushers were moving slowly down the pews of students, passing baskets back and forth. Patience thought nothing of it until she heard the curious whispering and saw the cocked heads of bemused fellow students. Finally, the basket moved past her with a whispered, “Take one and pass it on.” She plucked a dull gray egg from the basket, nearly losing her grasp at the surprising weight of it, and passed it to her left along with the instructions she had been given. She examined the egg, tapping it gently in case it were an actual egg. What does taking care of an animal have to do with— “Your attention! I realize you are all curious about what you’ve been handed!” Dean Blade commanded the chapel without the crude measure of a fireburst. “This is your first assignment! It is a solid egg of pewter, and your assignment is to reshape it without recourse to your native sphere of fire. Any shape will do, but you will be reshaping it before an instructor to prove that you have the concept. You will likely fail the first time, but remember! Your first sorcery with the metal will be a harbinger for what is to come!”
